Hence the Delsarte system aimed at actors, dancers, chorus girls, and singers were in the USA developed by a woman in 1892 into a callisthenic system integrated with deep respiration, relaxation, visualisation and harmonial esoteric. The title of G. Stebbin’s book says it all: Dynamic Breathing and Harmonic Gymnastics. A Complete System of Physical Aesthetic and Physical Culture. A year later another American female writer A.P. Call published a similar system consisting of gentle gymnastics, relaxation techniques and mystical breath-work’. Soon after there emerged similar techniques some of which are still renowned today like Mensendieck gymnastic (1908) and Pilates (around 1920). Both worked on posture, relaxation and breath and both found significant therapeutic use.
So the time was ripe with a huge range of body-oriented discourses interacting constructively as circles of middleclass women increasingly gained independence and emancipation. In Britain – as a final example of the development – M. Bagot Stack around 1920 developed her Harmonic Gymnastic. Photos of her demonstrating some of her poses would make most contemporary people claim she was instructing asana yoga. But as Singleton says, she actually had been on a visit to India, so this is no surprise. What is significant is that her exercises were about aesthetics, health and spiritual growth’, which also came across in the title of her book Building the Body Beautiful, The Bagot Stack Stretch-and-Swing System (1931). But please note that she does not call it yoga, and note further how aesthetics’ and spirituality’ have become happy neighbours.
The silence will inform us and guide us to the truth.Upward Salute, Raised Hands Pose Yoga Our daily lives are filled with words, but words can either gain or lose their meaning with repetition.Upward Salute, Raised Hands Pose Yoga It is important to only repeat words that elevate our souls. The rest of it will only deplete our energy source. In silence, we can explore the words that we use all the time and contemplate our actions in inaction. Why did I do that or say this? Observing these processes that we go ‘through is like acting as a witness to ourselves. The deeper we go into the things that we do, the closer we get to the truth. On a more esoteric level, the goal of meditation is liberation from the things that bind us and prevent us from experiencing life as bliss.
